A McDonalds Mother's Day Clip Show

Cilla learns that Charlie wasn't in the popular crowd in high school:

Cilla started crying. Then she got up and flung herself on me. “Oh, Mother, I am sorry that you were a nerd.” Then she cried some more, just like a Bette Davis movie.

Josh discusses Charlie's parenting style:

Today, after we got home from church, Josh said, “Aidan asked where you’d been today.”  Aidan is a boy in Betsey’s class.

First she looked panicky.  “What did you tell him?”

Josh shrugged.  “I just said, ‘My mom says she’s rebelling.’ [by not going to Sunday School]. Then we got some cookies.” 

“What else did he say?”

“He said he was going to play softball this spring.”

“No, I mean about me.”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, he said, ‘Your mom must be really cool not to make her go.’”

Then I got interested.  “What did you say?” I asked.

“I said, ‘Yeah, she’s OK.’”

Betsey gives Charlie parenting advice:

Shopping with two girls is one of those experiences that “challenge you to grow,” as my mother used to say when I complained about having to do something.  I tell the children to “offer it up.”  And I was given a lot to offer.

Cilla and her friends have decided that “if it isn’t pink, they’re not wearing it.”  And on the first day, everything had to be totally pink.  After that they would condescend to wear contrasting pants or skirts.

 

Betsey told me I was “spoiling her” and looked superior until I reminded her of the year she and her friends wore purple all day every day; even their pajamas had to be purple.

I shouldn’t have said anything because Cilla decided that she needed pink pajamas and wanted to call her friends right now, please, please, please so they could get some too.

Charlie's problems with having a mother who was a scientist:

I could never figure my mother out; I was into novels and movies, which she thought were a waste of time when I could be riding my bike or talking on the phone with my friends who were real people.  She thought I was “a funny little thing,” but I was her “funny little thing” and she did the best she could .

When I was a child counting down to Christmas, I would say, “If you don’t count today and you don’t count tomorrow, Christmas is X number of days away.” 

When I told my mother this, she said, “Why wouldn’t you count today and tomorrow?”

I said “To make it come faster.”

“Now, Charlie, you know that doesn’t make sense.”

Later I heard her telling one of her friends about this on the phone.  “She’s such a funny little thing.  I just don’t know how she’s going to get along in the world.”

If she’d sounded amused, my feelings would have been hurt, but she sounded concerned.  So I never shared the countdown with her again, although I kept it up.

Karen's mother prepares for the worst:

 Then, of course, Karen dug out her wedding album.  She got married in December in a candlelight service.  It was only about ten years ago, but we couldn’t believe how dowdy everyone looked, when they weren’t trying to be retro.  Karen had worn a strapless gown and her mother had worried all through the service that it would fall down.  She’d made Karen’s father hold her coat in his lap so he could run up and throw it over her. 

“What about the reception?  Did he follow you around?”

 “No, I think she figured everyone would be too drunk to notice.”

Nikki's mother on overnight guests :

"My mother tried so hard to be cool and with it,” Nikki giggled.  “She put Helmut in the guest room and asked if I wanted to stay there too.  I was so embarrassed, I turned red.  She said, ‘Oh, Nicole, grow up!’”

Ed's childhood with a politically active mother:

When Missy and Janet became friends again, I thought we were going to be an even bigger happy family.  Ed was not particularly pleased.

He said that his mother and Missy had been Leftist-Hippy Lucy and Ethel in their day, getting together and carrying on and dragging him and Allison and Missy’s kids to protest marches and peace vigils.  “It’s a miracle we didn’t get lung cancer from all the secondhand pot smoke.  And the music!  Dear God, the music!  How many roads can a man walk down before they call him a man?  Solidarity forever!  I caught my mother singing that to Betsey when she was a baby.  I made her switch to 'Jesus Loves Me'.  We’d come home from school and all there would be in the house were about three M & M’s.   We had to eat apples for snacks!”  Ed was on a roll.